The A Team
by Gwenny-Dear
Summary: Not all Hales are born wolves. Eleanor Hale comes back to Beacon Hills with a bigger chip on her shoulder than when she left it.
1. Prologue

an; this is my first fanfic in quite a while, and my first in the teen wolf fandom. but i really like the idea, love it actually. we'll see where it gets me. oh um and eleanor has tons of nicknames, which is one of the reasons i've picked that name.

**disclaimer: i do not own "teen wolf", the characters in it, or the location. i don't even own bayview. all i can claim is little ellie hale. **

ps the title is referencing the hit eighties tv show, not the song :)

XO

Eleanor Hale was petrified.

Being a part of her family was generally absolutely terrifying, of course. But that wasn't the problem at hand. In fact, there was very little reason for her to be scared of them at all, anymore. The only ones left were her, her siblings (Laura was the only one around, though; Derek was off the rails somewhere in rural Oregon) and poor old Uncle Pete, who definitely wouldn't be terrorizing any neighborhoods.

So a _stranger_ was mauling deer in their hometown of Beacon Hills, leaving signs of revenge all over the damn place.

Even thinking about the name gave El the chills. After the fire, when rumors and Argents swarmed the small town, the remaining Hales had split. Laura was twenty, Derek just turning seventeen, and Eleanor ten. With Laura assuming guardianship, they'd fled to the equally sleepy California town of Bayview. Then, a year later when Der turned eighteen, he left Bayview behind as well.

That left Laura, fearless leader, Alpha, and family head, to investigate the deer. She'd packed a bag, sent Ellie to stay with a friend for the weekend, and went home. Because that's always what the town surrounded by forests would be, no matter how much they'd all suffered. The Hale family home still stood; their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and little cousin Tommy were all buried in the family plot.

None of that mattered anymore, of course. Their old house stood only by the grace of God Himself, and there would _never _be enough money in the world to convince El to even step foot in there, let alone live in the ruins. Besides, she had friends in Bayview, good grades and a job; she was on the cheer leading team, for Christ's sake. Eleanor Hale, except for the decimation of her family six years prior, was living the American dream.

Which all lead back to her being worried and terrified that her big sister was walking into something much bigger than either of them were prepared for.

Unlike other Alphas, Laura had no pack. And she'd never had any desire to make a new pack; Laura was a bit of a snob in that she thought most wolves who weren't born into it didn't deserve her respect. In most cases she was right; turned wolves tended to be cocky little bastards. Again, all this left her at a disadvantage - wolves are pack animals in every form they take, were or other.

So when Derek showed up at four in the morning on her best friend's doorstep, Eleanor Hale promptly burst into tears.

OX

oh god i'm nervous and i didn't think i'd be wow this is big and this is actually really short oh god

i apologize for the run on; please please please let me know if i should keep going or just go frown in a corner.


	2. taste like ash

an - edited; disregard all that timeline nonsense. school begins as normal - in september. derek & el still arrive in beacon hills around a week before the actual show begins.

in other news~ the cover pic is what i vaguely think ellie looks like, except maybe a tad bit tanner; the model's name is taylor marie hill and she's really quite beautiful haha.

i also made a polyvore outfit thing which can be found on my profile. please don't judge my complete lack of fashion knowledge, haha. outfits will be uploaded sporadically; not every chapter will have one!

okay! on with the story!

**disclaimer: i do not own anything besides ellie hale and what changes i make to the plot.**

XO

Jamie (her best friend in Bayview, well, anywhere really) wants to know who the tall, dark, handsome stranger at her door was, and why he caused Ellie to so quickly burst into tears. Through her sniffles, Eleanor starts talking.

"J-Jamie, this is my big brother. Derek." a hiccup causes his name to crack right in half. "And if - if he's here, J, then something bad's happened. Is- isn't that right, Der?" Watery green eyes snap to the taller man, who has his hands shoved in the pockets of his leather coat.

"Yeah. We're needed back home, El." It's morbidly funny, seeing such an otherwise-surly guy fumbling for his words. "Family emergency. Laura needs us."

Wiping her tears away, Ellie goes to grab her bags.

OX

Derek hadn't said much more to Ellie than "Laura's missing. I have to go look for her, and neither of us would ever leave you alone while the other's MIA. So you're coming too." Apparently, Laura had called him on her way up to Beacon Hills, and had asked him to meet her there. When he got down from Oregon on Sunday, she wasn't there.

Now there are two suitcases rattling around the trunk of Derek's beloved Camaro. That's all she'd been able to fling together while Derek paced the length of her living room. One case contained the usual travel necessities; clothes and a pair of sturdy boots, a family photo album, and a few other sentimental items. The other bag, however, was reserved for more . . . unconventional things.

Larger and made of good, hardy brown leather, the inside of the bag was a treasure trove of weaponry and supernatural materials. Books in Ancient Latin spoke about creatures long dead and ways to kill them. A very small glass bottle contained wolfsbane seeds, while a ziploc bag contained a larger, dried plant. At the very bottom of the bag, under sheathed daggers and a collapsible cross bow, locked in a metal box and empty, was a .380 caliber Ruger LCP, licensed to one Laura Hale. Two boxes of bullet it - one full of regular slugs, and the other for the unfriendly werewolves of the world, accompanied it.

Her older sister had wanted Eleanor well prepared for the world, supernatural or otherwise.

Instead of letting images of Laura tortured, battered, or worse psych her out, Ellie started making Lists. It had become habit, over the years, to calm herself down by neatly and efficiently listing anything she could think of. She'd made lists of every sweater in her closet, her closest friends, how many girls she had to be better then in order to be considered for the position of captain of the cheer leading team, etc etc. But those were made during more carefree situations.

This List was the steps and procedures for transferring Eleanor Hale out of Bayview High and into Beacon Hill High. School started in a week, and there wasn't any way she'd be missing it. She could still remember the paperwork Laura had filled out to get her into middle school. There had been quite a few phone meetings, which was good; the older Ellie had gotten, the more she'd started to sound like her oldest sibling. Her voice might not have had the rough undertone that Laura's had (she smoked like a chimney, Laura did), but she could make a passable effort.

As much as she didn't want to uproot her life, Eleanor could see no other way. There was very little chance Laura would be found right away; and even if she was, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that either of the older Hale siblings would just walk away; they'd walked away from too much already.

XO

Derek could see Ellie getting lost. It wasn't very obvious, but a combination of heightened senses and the fact that this was his little sister helped him out. Her eyes got that far away look; long, thin fingers tangled together in her lap, and her heart slowed down almost imperceptibly.

He broke the silence with "It'll be alright. You know that, don't you Ellie?"

She nodded her head, long brown hair bouncing as well. "Of course I do, Der." Her heartbeat skipped - liar.

His fists tighten around the steering whee. "Whatever happens, El, we have each other. We can't ever forget that. Pack sticks together."

Eleanor's eyes tighten at the corners, harden, before she nodded again.

"Pack sticks together." she echoed.

OX

She doesn't want to stay here - refuses to, actually. Wouldn't even get out of the car, not like her darling brother. Oh no, he's content to live in this old, burned out husk, with half the back wall turned to cinders and bad memories hanging like smoke in the air. All she can smell is burned wood and - and the barest hint of burned flesh. She can't imagine what someone with a better sense of smell could detect

El rolls down the window. He stops moving, cocks an ear. "I'm not - I can't stay here, Derek." He turns to face her fully, eyebrows furrowed. "Neither should you, of course, but I doubt you'd ever listen."

"Where else are we going to go, Ellie? First of all, we don't have any cash. Secondly, what part of _no one can know we're here _do you not understand?" His hands fist at his sides in anger.

"We need a base, Der! Somewhere we can fortify and hole up in if it is who we think it is!" Eleanor gets out of the car now, and starts walking towards her brother. "Besides, they can't hurt me. Even if they don't follow their own code, Derek, they can't hurt normals. We can use my name for a motel room."

"You're not even old enough! And what do we do for money?"

Ellie's cheeks redden, and it's not just from the snap in the air. "I have a fake - a good one. And, I've got every cent I made for the past two years. It wa-" she clears her throat; "It was for a car, but this is more important."

Derek's eyes soften, lose their edge, and he sighs. "Fine. Fine. We'll do it your way."

OX

They end up in, quite literally, the seediest motel Eleanor's ever seen. The lobby is all stained carpeting and dirty wall paper; the lone worker is behind a panel of three inch thick glass. He's greasy and bored, flipping through yesterday's newspaper.

With Derek looming behind her, Eleanor shoves her hands in her pockets and clears her throat. No response. She tries again, clearing it louder and rougher. Again, nothing. Impatient, she taps on the divider. The kid peers up at her from behind his paper.

"Whatcha want?" Inexplicably, he has some sort of Deep South accent.

"A room with two beds, please." El is nothing if not polite.

"Ain't got none of those left. You an' yer shadow'll have ta get real intimate." His newspaper comes down to reveal a yellow smile. The color rises in her cheeks again. Derek's getting pissed, she can feel it. And an angry Derek is _not _a good thing.

"We're siblings, not that it's your business. We'll take what you have." Der growls from the shadows behind her.

The worker "humphs" before pulling out a dusty log book and a set of keys. "Gotta see so-" And before he can say "ID," Ellie's pulled out her fake, which uses her real name even though it proclaims her to be twenty two as of January 4. "Sign in, _Miss Hale._" he growls.

Eleanor signs with a flourish, snatches the key and then tries to frog-march her brother out the door. Surprisingly, he goes easily enough.

The room she's just purchased is no better than the lobby. The linoleum in the bathroom is peeling, there's mold growing along the edges of the windows, and the carpet seems especially soggy in one corner. Derek rubs a hand over his tired face while El gingerly takes a seat on the bed.

"I'll figure something out, Ellie, but this place isn't good enough." he muttered. Then he heaved a sigh, and walked towards the door. "I'm going to go look around the woods for any signs; I'll be back by noon. Don't leave, don't answer for anyone."

He slams the door before she can answer.

XO

Derek found a whole lot of nothing. He spent most of the next day sleeping, exhausted from staying awake three days straight (almost two full days' worth traveling and a third searching for his sister), waking up around eight only to go right back to searching. When he walked in the motel room at three on their second day in town, he tosses Ellie a set of keys.

Some discreet inquiries around town had led him to a dotty little old lady with a furnished attic apartment. Consisting of one bedroom, a living room, a teeny bath and a galley kitchen, all for a reasonably low monthly rent. Derek snapped the place up, even though he knows he won't be staying there; he'll go back to the Hale Mansion before living in the claustrophobic attic.

Unfortunately, this is his only find. By Saturday he's found tracks all over the place, but none of them lead to Laura. He's stressed and worried and sometimes takes it out on El. He yelled for an hour straight when he found out she'd been spending her days working on transferring schools and getting a job. It needed to be done, of course, but it's not what _he _thinks she should be doing. And maybe Derek's right; maybe Ellie could have slipped in a few more questions about the locals, see if anyone had seen strangers in town (well, besides her and her brother). But there's only so much a sixteen year old can do, especially if she was to stay as under the radar as Derek wants her to.

As much as it seems like it, though, she's just as strung out as he is. She's worried about _both _her siblings, Laura for being out there alone in the wilderness and for Derek since he's willingly venturing out there to look for her; El's whole life is uprooted and tossed around and things like that _matter _to her. So she screams back at Derek, vicious things that make even a hardened werewolf like him flinch.

Things remain strained between them until the hikers find half of Laura in the woods Sunday night.

OX

okay i think this is a good place to end it. this feels a little . . . rushed to me, yet slow at the same time. i've tried it every which way i can think of, but i can't get all the facts hammered out. el needed a place to stay, but derek needed to be at the hale house at all times; she had to switch schools; they had to actually get inside beacon hills etc etc. it's all filler, but necessary, i swear!

i sincerely hope this was good! you all should review and tell me what you thought, if i've done derek any justice or if he's not pouting enough ehehe

tor (which is my real name, for your information haha~)


End file.
